Hello! I cannot believe how fast the year is flying by. We just took the 5th grade panoramic picture the other day and I am amazed at how much the students have changed since the begining of the year. We have been working so hard and learning so much. I have been very proud of the academic progress your children have made.
In Math we completed Units 3 & 4 and learned how to identify place value to the thousandths. We also have reviewed how to compare decimals and order them from least to greatest. Please encourage your child to utilize the strategies we are using in class, rewrite the decimals lining up the decimal points and then compare each place value. Often they like to do this quickly and just look at the numbers but not truly identify the place values to make comparisons. We reviewed rounding of decimal numbers and discussed the rule of "5 or more add one more" and if it is less than five, we leave it alone. We focused on adding and subtracting decimals. Although, this seems like an easy task, often students make careless errors in basic addition and subtraction. Please remind them to be thoughtful and check their work for mistakes. We also learned how to multiply with decimals and how to place the decimal. They should continue to focus on taking their time and setting up the problem correctly so they do not make mistakes. In our current unit 5 we are exploring how to divide with decimals. We are learning how to divide decimals with whole numbers and with decimals. We are using the strategy D.M.S.B and then figuring out what to do with the decimal. We've begun to look at how to add zeros to the dividend and solve problems with repeating decimals.
In Writer's Workshop we wrote "Edge of your Seat" personal narratives. We read the mentor text, Shortcut by Donald Crews and learned that an edge of your seat personal narrative is short, suspenseful and has strong emotions We discussed foreshadowing and how to create tension in our writing to make it engaging to the reader.
We generated lists of strong emotions and feelings in our Writer's Notebooks. Then we chose some of those emotions and wrote about times when we felt those emotions. Many students wrote about times they were scared or anxious to do something, like ride a roller coaster. Their stories were engaging and exciting.
We are currently working on our nonfiction unit in Writer's Workshop. We started by looking at several unique nonfiction texts and studied the style of the writing. We focused on how the author tried to pull the reader in and make the factual information more interesting.
We read the following books:
Each student chose a topic to research and tried to draft out their research using a creative style. We then learned how to use Pages on the i-pads to publish our nonfiction articles. We keep focusing on adding more relevant details to support our thinking in our writing.
We have recently begun to write 3 entries in our Writer's Notebooks. Please check with your child to make sure they are writing entries out side of school.
During read aloud we just finished, Gossamer by Lois Lowry and had great discussions about character motivation and foreshadowing. I then gave the class a choice of books to read for our next book and they chose Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea. It is a wonderful story told from the perspective of several students in the class. We will have important discussions about bullying and regret. We will also work on identifying the author's message or purpose for writing the story. We've also been working on inferences and character motives. We've had some discussions about what a character does and what they might be feeling or thinking that isn't stated specifically in the text. It is an engaging story that has a big surprise at the end. I encourage you to read it and have a book talk with your child.
In Social Studies we have been working on Government. We began with a review of the causes of the Revolutionary War and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We have started a new strategy to collect important information from non-fiction text called Golden Lines. With Golden Lines a student will pull out the important fact, write a response or connection to the fact and lastly draw a picture to help remember the fact.
For example:
Golden Lines
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Connections
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Visual Representation
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The Stamp Act of 1765 was a tax on paper goods like a newspaper or a deck of cards.
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I would hate having to suddenly pay a tax on something.
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The goal is that when they are finished reading the text they will have a sheet with the Golden Lines (Important Information) to study from. They will be able to look at the visual representation and hopefully that will help them recall the factual information. Also, making the connection to the fact helps make it important to them so they'll remember it more. Our study focused on the federal level of the United States government. We will take our unit test this week and begin our next unit of study: The United States.
In Science we have been working on the Nervous system. We have learned a lot of amazing facts about the brain. We read a very interesting magazine called Brain by Kids Discover. We also created brain hats and learned about the parts of the brain. Your child should be able to explain which parts of the brain are responsible for physical movement, thinking and autonomic processes.
In Reader's Workshop we have been working on Social Issue Book Clubs. Each group is responsible for identifying the themes of the story and the author's message. We read picture books to practice determining the themes and author's message. We also worked on how to interact effectively with each other during book discussions. It was so exciting to see how engaged all students were in their books. We then learned how to use Keynote on the i-pad so they can create a presenation on their book. They are going to focus on the themes, author's message and character motives.
